Evening's Freedom - Lucius Malfoy
by Catharsiss-BridgetteHayden
Summary: Walls, wards, and restraining orders, are not enough to keep Lucius from seeing the daughter Harry bore against his will. While the Ministry can trace his use of magic, they cannot trace his spirit. Apparently, the child creates a binding contract between himself and Harry.


This is just a glimpse into Lucius' part of the story. It was meant to be a one-shot, but has now become chapter 8 in Harry's version. This part contains vital information to the overall plot. The story will still primarily grow from Harry's version. Lucius' account below, really begins in Unbearable - Draco.

WARNINGS: AU, SLASH, THEMES OF NON-CON/RAPE, GENDER ISSUES!

JK Rowling is the owner and mastermind of Harry Potter. I am merely a fan.

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A/N: I can't believe I have to say this. I do not agree with Lucius' views, only that blood carries genetic information. Apparently, my writing is so convincing that I have to calm some fears. Lucius is the wizard who gave a little girl an evil book that tried to kill her. I am not. His logic is very simple and is not about hatred in _this_ story. A line that has practiced magic is more magical than a line that has not. Every race and color can have fun with this! Also, remember this is renegade writing. It's not meant to be canon. It has no beta so far. I'm following what makes me happy, fascinating characters forced to bare their souls. Hope you have fun too.

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It wasn't up to him.

No jury would believe him.

It was his magic. He couldn't help it if his magic knew how to escape prisons that his body did not.

Lucius swiveled his drink and admired how firelight glowed through the dark amber of his glass. That still, hypnotic moment made him realize that he drank port, not for its flavor, but for its ability to hone his focus. His mind sustained itself with pending intentions and strategies to execute them, so the elixir in his hand was one way to step back from momentum and see how his plans were shaping up. One could become intoxicated on anything, but the shimmer of his drink, in the comfort of his study, was his chosen method of clearing his mind.

Sitting up after midnight, long after kissing his wife goodnight, this was his way of letting the Universe restore balance to him and appreciating that he no longer had dementors feasting on him anymore. His magic, his sanity, had survived six months of it. He wasn't the same, but that didn't mean he'd lost an ounce of integrity. It simply went underground. It waited for his health to return. It waited for the Ministry's surveillance to become appeased. It waited to fulfill probationary stipulations. It waited for his assets to be restored, though not to their former glory anytime soon. It waited.

One thing that didn't wait, was his magic.

He couldn't help it if there were scrolls, written in cellular form, in the building blocks of his blood, and the blood of his offspring. Magic traveled by blood. That was real, no matter what trend or campaign for equal treatment denied that reality. It wasn't about sneering at the lesser children of the world. It was about keeping the strengths one had, and making sure successors had something of value to navigate their way through life with. When his money could not take care of him in Azkaban, his ancestors had. Through his blood. Through his magic. And that was where the value of undiversified blood came from.

Their strength knew where to flow because he possessed a double helix spinning in perfect unison to the master strands that created it, that nourished it. That structure was a vortex, imitating the spin of galaxies and the energetic aura of every living person on this planet. People, muggles and wizards alike, walked with many vortices creating a maelstrom of power some six feet around their bodies. Some more powerful than others. But his wasn't powerful because it was given that way. It was powerful because he honored it. He maintained it for those who had given it to him, and through it, they fed his magic. Like his ancestors, he grew it and refined it with his life. He raised Draco to do the same. Honor the blood and you will always have the most potent vein of magic, whatever life throws at you. Fortunes can be rebuilt. But don't lose your magic and don't diminish it with the non-magical around you. They're cute, but don't bring them home.

He came from wizards who wanted to put their worlds together in any way they chose, unsanctioned by those who feared magic and didn't possess it in equal measure.

His line made their blood formidable among wizards through proper usage and breeding. Lazier bloodlines could pretend that it was all about everyone being happy and all the same if they wanted to. That was just a cover for one group being afraid of another's power. Hold the smartest child back, so that the others don't feel bad about themselves. Really? That was barbaric. Lucius' family knew that you didn't look to others to make you feel good about yourself. You grew your own power from within and you didn't need to rely on anyone's favor. That was just sensible. Otherwise, you spent your life in fear of what someone else had over you, or what they could make you do. The only responsible thing on earth a wizard could do, was keep his magic potent and accessible to his offspring. That didn't happen with laws boasting of equality for all.

If you want power, work for it. Be willing to be hated over being nice. Be willing to choose purity over the genetics of those coming from ages of magicless interbreeding and victim mentalities. When one took care of the blood, it took care of them. The proof was in his survival.

If he kept his property maintained and immaculate while his neighbor did not, then yes, he had a superior property. Simple as that, your precious feelings be damned. Purebloods may have gone out of fashion, but it was still the richest artery of magic and no politics were ever going to alter that reality in any way.

The events were unpredictable. He couldn't help it if his magic knew how to find Harry, when even his mind did not. Harry himself, owed his ability to defeat the Dark Lord, to very concentrated magic. To very purified blood, strained of sluggish imperfections. Lucius couldn't see it before. But the events have given him a window into Harry's gifts. He's seen the young man's energy, spiraling out from white-hot cores within the vertical axis of his body. He's actually stood over Harry Potter's bed and seen it.

He doesn't know when it's going to happen. It just happens. He doesn't plan on it. It's not as if he's going out of his way to get to Harry. In many ways, it's as if Harry comes to him. If not the boy himself, then at least his magic.

The event. That's what Lucius calls it. It wasn't so much born of his desire to escape the long shadows of the manor, as it was his desire to escape limitations imposed upon him. His body, now free from a prison made of stone and cold, wet and rot, pulled the silence and beauty of his home around him like a warm blanket by a glowing hearth. Monsters need comfort too, he mused.

As long as any governing body of judgement deigned to tell him what he could and couldn't do, he could not rest without calculating the weaknesses of his sentence. His magic did it for him, seeking and breathing freedom wherever it felt cut off. Iron shackles did that to a man. They did worse to a wizard accustomed to nothing but full reign to use his abilities. A man might be brought low, through the pain of his body. But magic existed apart from flesh and it wasn't going quietly. Even when Lucius lay stripped of all dignity, as long as he didn't think about the tears of his wife, he could still laugh at the Ministry's pitiful efforts to rob him of his magic. As long as Draco was still alive, he could hold his head aloft, having done everything the Dark Lord asked him to, to make that possible. He regretted nothing that kept his family alive. Nothing.

The only thing that bothered him was his home's stark emptiness, and that didn't mean the collections and furnishings that Draco had the decency to protect from further seizure and confiscation. He still had most of the relics of his ancestry and was working on retrieving more. He still had many of the prizes, which mythologized his perfect lineage. Emptiness referred to the spark in his wife's eyes and laughter, and the way they dimmed to embers in their conversation. Emptiness referred to the absence of his son, and the boy's thriving potential echoing off the walls in the form of new blood-family, an anticipated fiancée for Draco. There would've been a new child by now, awarded from Draco's duty to his family. Draco had proven loyal, and instilled with Malfoy values. He'd wisely compromised where he had to, to gain the Minister's trust. That continued the family's foothold in the political and business arena, till more trust could be purchased and used to climb out of disgrace.

If his family had been left alone to heal from a madman's control, they would've recovered just fine. The manor had always been silent. But now it was wounded to the soul, insulted by an absence of prosperity and family. Lucius was busy rectifying that. But their lives had been derailed, not destroyed. Much like that train fiasco involving the Potter boy. Draco could give him a grandchild yet. He was already holding his own in finances and extended scholarship. And he did it while taking care of his infant sister. Proof of blood again.

Lucius felt tension leave his mouth as a smile gently took over. His daughter. His blood.

She was a beauty. The best thing about her was that her birth-father would never be able to deny where her blood came from. He wouldn't be able to pretend that she could be anyone else's. Every time he looked at her, his own hypocrisy would be staring back at him. Her magic was sure to be powerful. Not because of her equality, Harry, but because of her goddamned blood.

_I've seen her magic, my boy. And you won't like it._

Draco is keeping her safe. It's good that Draco stays close to Harry so that he can make sure his sister is treated well. He was very proud of Draco, though those words, even if Draco would listen to them, might sound hollow after two years of estrangement. One's prison exceeded the terms of the sentence itself.

Still, she was worth the sacrifice. Harry's as well as his own. At first he wasn't sure. Her presence was a novelty, unsought and unwanted. Then Narcissa had smiled bravely, her grace unfailing, and said, "I want her. We can't leave her to him. He's been raised by those without magic, he doesn't know any better. He doesn't know how to temper the Malfoy heritage. Her magic knows us and it will expect us to do right by it."  
Her eyes had lowered as she admitted. "A lesser person would resent her. But she exists because you were keeping us alive. If Harry Potter's magic, and yours, had to unite to save my family, then so be it. I want her here, so that we can be her primary influences. Make up to your son. Make up to Harry. Those were war crimes, done upon orders to do so. They shall not stop us from living to the fullest extent of our abilities. We've suffered enough. Get your son back, and bring me that baby. Harry can't be happy with her, not under those circumstances. If we make a show of throwing ourselves on his mercy, of expressing true sorrow, we might be able to relieve him of his burden. You know she's only a burden to him."

They still couldn't bring themselves to call her by that god-awful name. I-ece. It sounded like some trendy, muggle rap musician trying to make a name for himself. Lucius knew about such entities from his work in the Ministry and regulating relations between cultures. He could only frown at Harry's influences. His daughter deserved an elegant name.

He had looked into Narcissa's eyes and seen the truth. To her, the baby was a chance to be a mother to Draco all over again. She hadn't given up on Draco and she wasn't going to let him walk away as if he wasn't in possession of something of great value to her. While the infant wasn't a grandchild, it was the closest thing she might ever have to one. An infant who looked like her son's baby pictures, could heal what Draco's estrangement had done to her heart. She could dress it in heirloom clothing. She could take it shopping, and flaunt its pedigree. She could revamp the nursery, and keep a frame of Draco's childhood picture on one side, and Iece's on the other and watch them play with one another through an entire dimensional generation. More than anything, she could instill the Black influence of her own family, for there were some things a Black witch's upbringing was never to go without. Since Harry's own father was of Black decent, Narcissa knew, like her husband, the blood would hold her accountable. She couldn't neglect blood. It's what gave them their magic.

Maybe the Dark Lord had known this and the baby's existence was a true testament to his evil genius. In any case, Narcissa needed that baby more than it needed her, they both knew. Harry didn't want it, surely. Harry couldn't want it. That's why Draco stayed so close to him, to keep her safe. Not that they believed Harry capable of harming the baby, but both knew he couldn't be entirely balanced after what Voldemort had Lucius do to him. No one would be, especially not a soft boy brought up by muggles. Harry may have proven his grit in the war, but fighting does not equate to quality. That baby shouldn't have to be subjected to instability of any kind. It wasn't her fault that Harry got pregnant from the curse instead of dying.

Narcissa swallowed back her emotions. "Please make peace with Harry. I want her to grow up with family. I want to be seen with my head held high and to show her off. I want to show the world that we too have come through our ordeal with renewal and blessings. We will not hide our pride just because of one awful night. Or a thousand awful nights. We have a place in this world. We have not abandoned our son and he has not given up on us. The child that people believe to be his, will be seen in our company, for we have survived intact. She will be a beacon of pride, not shame, as so many would like. She will represent our triumphs, not our failures."

Hope stood wet and glassy, threatening to spill from her eyes.

He loved his wife. He was still unable to make love to her, a condition of his sentence in Azkaban that was taking its time wearing off, even after two years. At least the tremors were gone. And the nightmares. But all she seemed to need of him was his warmth, his weight, and his caresses, to reassure her that they were out of the prison and free in the sun. What he couldn't do with his body, he did with his magic. His hands made sure she knew how much he thought of her, and his mouth inspired her tears for different reason, that had nothing to do with the loss of her son.

When sleep took her, he remained awake, unsatisfied, and retreated to his study. His thoughts usually led back to Draco, Potter, and the child. He's certain that some central longing to regain mastery over his household, played a great part in what he discovered when his body fell asleep in his chair.

Prisoners are not allowed to dream in Azkaban. That is, sleep cycles are influenced by security spells which prevent one from entering the deepest stages of sleep for extended periods. It is in the deepest stages of rest that the body repairs itself and cleanses cellular chemistry with an influx of renewed vitality. A fresh start. If truest and deepest sleep were allowed, wizards would cure themselves of their nightmares. Trauma, inflicted by the presence of dementors, would lessen and heal over time, resulting in adaptation to conditions until finally being little affected by them. Eventually, every wizard would be able to reclaim his or her magic, even behind prison walls, which would of course render the concept obsolete. Can't have that. Spells and drugged food did not allow the soul to escape through dreams. The body's hold was not allowed to loosen.

That was the true prison. And Lucius had forgotten it until his body learned to settle again into his bed and his favorite chair. He had to learn to become comfortable in his skin again before trusting himself to deep sleep. It must've taken a year for him to awaken without panic, without feeling on the brink of a slow, grotesque kiss that would end his life. After a year, he began to dream again. They were not the psychological brutalities induced by levels of sleep that only yielded nightmares. They were real dreams. The soul requires regular escape from the confines of the body, through nightly dreams. This regulates the entire awake-sleep cycle that tells one what is real, and what _could_ be real.

Standing over Harry Potter's bed, watching him sleep, could've been real. The soul takes its surroundings for granted. That's why the illusion is so engaging and one does not question it. At first it was just a dim room that hinted of blue walls, a white muggle baby-bed, not a proper crib, and soft lighting that glowed just enough from a bathroom, to light the toys and objects littering the floor. The floor, it was that cheap synthetic stuff that passed for muggle carpeting. Lucius mused at the details his dream chose to show. Sometimes he saw Draco sleeping next to Harry. Sometimes he only saw Harry.

Other times, he goes straight for the child's bed. Most of the time she's awake and blinking expectantly back at him. She's pulled herself up by the bars along her bed and her eyes follow him, flashing excitedly at his entry. He feels her. At first, it had been enough to find her sleeping and, at last, sneak her into his arms. Despite not having done such a thing for decades, he wanted to see if he still had his touch. He cradled her head in the palm of his hand and supported her back with the other. There'd been a time when he could put Draco to sleep against him, when even Narcissa and her servants could not. What did Draco call her? Nicee. Her curling into a ball against him, resuming a trust reserved for the womb, was the ultimate test of his worthiness. The first three times he dreamt this, his soul flooded with her unconditional acceptance. She literally sent love into him. He overflowed with it until he lost all sense of his dream-body and his ability to hold her. He thought he was dropping her, until he awoke in his study to find that it was merely a very pleasant dream. One of the first since his release.

He'd been prepared to hate her, for he knew quite well that she was power having taken the form of a child. But her acceptance told him that she was not his enemy. If anything, she was one of the few who could really see him, and approved of what she saw. She had come to do work, to shift entire concepts among the masses. She was glad to have come through him. Each time he went to her bed, they regarded each other like old friends.

In dreams, her miniature features kept her in baby form, but her sentience and intelligence is fully developed behind her eyes and she feels him as well. There would come a day when she wouldn't remember her ability to look at someone and know everything she needed to know about them. That day comes for most. But Lucius enjoyed the advantage of having his daughter see down to his soul, and still retain a smile on her face that showed no signs of diminishing. As he held her stare, they talked. They used the oldest language that dreamers speak to one another in, that held no barriers to age, culture, or dimension.

He's learned that he cannot go to Draco's side of the bed and touch him. If he tries, Draco will vanish and he will awaken. It's as if, even his dream knows he no longer has the right to touch his son. Until Draco forgives him, he will not. If one cannot be free in dreams, then what did that leave?

That left Harry Potter. When he focused on Harry, Draco and Nicee disappeared, leaving them alone.

Lucius didn't know how he felt about him. The boy wasn't supposed to survive, and that was very inconvenient. As messy as that was, he'd gotten a daughter out of it. Her blood was exquisite. Not even Narcissa, bless her to the highest, had been able to repeat the perfection of a second child. The dear had simply given everything she had to the first one. That was entirely forgivable. Their loyalty to their blood-magic had honored them with another child anyway. Nicee was further proof that the Universe favored and supported them. It was no small detail that she'd come through the person who defeated Voldemort, thereby gaining Harry's magic as well as Lucius'. Apparently, the blood had wanted to merge and Lucius had to start thinking in terms of creating a civil atmosphere around Harry. They would never be friends. They would never respect one another. But they'd both been manipulated into sharing blood by powers far greater than Voldemort. And this was how royalty was chosen, Lucius mused.

He remembered the night he did it. Standing over Harry's bed, he almost expected the room to change to that night, where sex and death were allowed to sweat into his hall with great intensity. He'd presided as executioner and his Deatheater fellows, some still alive, were held captive to the blood sport that took place. But he didn't want to relive that. It took practice, but he learned to find something about Harry that would keep the scene from changing into that irreversible night. He learned to focus on Harry's mouth. Unlike the hair and the scar, it didn't take him back to Voldemort.

The mouth made him confess that Harry was actually attractive. He hadn't always thought so. James Potter's son always seemed to have a homeliness about him that Lucius had always associated with his father. Maybe it was the glasses. Maybe it was their association with muggles, he wasn't sure. Knowing that Harry had been raised and primarily influenced by that family Dumbledore simply, recklessly handed him to, cinched it. There was no hope for that child after that. Not in terms of pureblood etiquette. It was only when he'd had Harry beneath him, driving into him, that the boy's magic was forced to the surface, allowing Lucius to see what he really looked like for the first time.

As a man, Harry was handsome.

As a man in sexual pain, Harry was a dark beauty.

At the time, he was still more boy than man, and he'd done nothing to impress Lucius' mind any differently since. Lucius remembered thinking, riding the boy, drinking screams filled with a male's potent testosterone, that if it wasn't for what Harry had done to Draco, he'd be willing to let Harry live. It wasn't as if he had a choice in the matter. He'd teach Harry this lesson, and then maybe he'd keep him for special occasions. Let him wander freely, even marry, then summon him through contractual servitude when needed. Clearly, his gifts did not present themselves until one was inside him to the hilt.

And having seen it, Lucius could not unsee it. This is what held him by the bed and in the dream. It was his dream, he might as well entertain himself. He may not have been able to satisfy himself in waking life, but in dreams, he should've been able to get some pleasure, somehow.

He threw back the sheet to make peace with whatever lack awaited him. Male angles have never impressed him, but a female's loveliness could. Since Harry was neither interesting nor female, Lucius didn't expect his rumpled pajamas to do much for him. But Harry wasn't wearing pajamas. And he wasn't entirely male.

Lucius was only interested in magic. When he threw back the sheet, he saw what he most wanted to see. Magic, combined with a commingling of all of his other, unmet needs. A young man lay before him, sleeping in a T-shirt and shorts. Not underwear, but the kind meant to be seen in public. His chest and torso held admirable flat planes and neat lines befitting sublime tone and condition. Definitely male. Definitely beautiful. The perfect molding of his limbs extended over his hips and carved thighs on down. In fact, the high, retro cut of the shorts revealed that Harry had perfectly beddable thighs. Lucius knew that older, fleshier men did, but this seemed especially intriguing about Harry.

What else did his dream want to give him? The want had no more formed in his mind than he reached for the protuberance sleeping in the boy's shorts. He gauged and measured the qualities of it with his hand. As he did, the first stirrings of real interest spread, infusing him with authentic arousal. As Harry stirred, knocking his hand away in his sleep, Lucius got creative.

Let's make this interesting, he smiled to no one but himself. He only meant to have Harry's body take on the characteristics of the curse he'd last seen the boy afflicted with. The Unbearable. Lucius remembered the strange appeal of it, and he'd since dubbed the boy's shadowy pubis, and the grip inside of it, as 'dark meat.' He wanted to see it again. The curse revealed itself to his dream vision. Just as he could communicate with his daughter and feel her magic, he pulled back another layer of reality when he asked to see the curse. Harry's outward appearance remained male. But beneath it, bare skin darkened from cream to a thin layer of rich black hairs and hooded, pink juiciness beneath.

Lucius marveled. He had only to make a preference, to see one or the other. His vision went with his focus. What an unlimited dream. His study of it became just as engaging as the revealing of the curse itself. It was as if the curse merely lay dormant beneath Harry's skin, giving the illusion that it was entirely gone. It went deeper than genetics. It had grown roots and sank them into his magic, sustaining its life within him. How positively evil. How utterly genius. An intelligent curse that could find a way to survive.

As he focused on his appetite and the feast presented to him, he dismissed the things he couldn't quite make sense of. The air, appearing to move in a circle around them, or the giant wheel that emerged into sight, meters above their heads, and rotated down into invisibility. Symbols glowed upon it one second, the next they were gone and it moved, windmill fashion, back into the dark dimension from which it came. Instinct told Lucius that this was Harry's magic and should not be tampered with. It also told him that he could not hold this glimpse of Harry open forever.

Though he prided himself on being a wizard, there were times such as this that he couldn't deny he was a man. Presented with such bounty, after going without for so long, what man wouldn't slip his fingers into that delicate, skin covered gateway? He made his choice. Because he had not done it in so long, he didn't dare attempt to mount Harry's body. He didn't have to. His fingers sank so hungrily into Harry's hidden parts, causing such a disturbance to sleeping waters, that his whole body awoke to its full potential. The pads of his fingers triggered Harry's reflexes, causing Harry's legs to slam closed and his lower back to arch off the mattress. Muscles that, a moment ago, were slack and unguarded, jerked into contractions that adopted the pulse of Lucius' fingers. Adopted it and met it as Harry's body trembled against the slick charge of Lucius' hand. In sleep, his body voiced its surprise as his head pushed deeper into his pillow and his arms reached to push away a phantom it could not see.

Lucius merely willed him not to wake, because this was Lucius' dream and Harry enduring this kind of pleasure against his will was beyond beautiful. Beyond arousing. The very breath that fought its way from Harry's lungs, shaped itself into senseless words. They scraped the back of Harry's throat as they came out, reshaping the energy of Lucius' hand and throwing that translation out into the air, to return to Lucius' excitement again. Male, gurgling rage, choked on saliva that it couldn't swallow fast enough. Harry twisted his head, throwing his hair over his closed eyes, and Lucius thought of turning him to keep him from choking. He forgot it in the next second as Harry's voice did incredible things, inspiring his hand to plunge as daringly and disrespectfully as it wanted.

He ended up straddling the bed to hold Harry against the mattress in an effort to restrain his hips and fight for access into Harry's body. The boy was strong, even in sleep. Even in a dream. Maybe the fight was exactly what Lucius wanted. He did like the chase. He did like a worthy opponent. But most of all, he liked the cries he got out of Harry and this environment fed it all back to him, so he knew that Harry felt no pain, only violent, assaulting pleasure.

Try as he might, he couldn't access the deepest part of Harry. Harry's muscles locked him out of that treasure, but he could feel it with his mind and he could taste what it would be like to push into its velvet lining. He couldn't believe his dream would give him so much, and not that? He must've really wanted to spend his rage. He must've wanted to fight the boy, who nearly left his life in ruins, who should've been dead. He must've held some last, lingering resentment for how everything turned out and the only way he had of relieving himself was taking it out on that tiny, helpless blossom between the boy's legs.

Yes, it was the perfect curse because, if touched properly, it rendered women overwhelmed and in tears at the loss of their bodily control. A man can retain control. Woe to the man cursed with such an appendage wired to the whole of his body. For the duration of contact, he would be nothing but a slave.

With his eyes, Lucius drank the sight of liquid pooling on Harry's face and darkening his T-shirt. As his hand worked inside Harry's shorts, he memorized as much as he could of the boy's convulsions and sobs. His liquid slick fingers rolled hooded layers over a deceptively diminutive little bulb that pulsed against them. One fit wasn't enough. Lucius wanted to see and feel the reverberations of an all out seizure from Harry and that's what he got. His hold grew aggressive and his hand imprisoned Harry in that state until it seemed to go on without his control. The dream had understood what he wanted and kept Harry locked in that momentum longer than physically possible. Long enough to see the boy crash helplessly against his pillow as his magic tore through his body in a series of orgasms that produced tears without letting him catch his breath.

Lucius' amazement got the best of him. He let himself peek at what all of this activity was doing to the male form that hid it. To his delight, he saw that it was the same. Harry's male form had awakened into robust life and could no more be separated from what his inner female endured than he could be separated from the curse. The effect was even more dramatic and a weaker wizard could not have watched. Watery-white emission continued to flow when Harry's testicles emptied of viable sperm. Momentum pushed inert seminal fluid out of him, every jerk disrupting sobs that ground their way up from his gut and left his young body bouncing off the bed.

Lucius couldn't help but feel avenged as Harry's body spilled like a slot machine, its prized contents flowing in an unnatural manner that left no room for dignity and no denying that results that hard had to be painful. He almost felt sorry for Harry's curse. He certainly felt sorry for women, but secretly thanked them for possessing such engaging attributes. As long as Harry possessed this secret button, Lucius could push it anytime he wanted. Harry's magic was delicious and strong. How did he like having it used against him?

Lucius smiled, opening his eyes to sunlight encroaching into his study. He admitted who he had to thank for this influx of renewed vitality. That insane, reptilian control freak who'd cost him everything, but left him a daughter and maybe even a little more.

Harry woke up cold on his bathroom floor. He couldn't move and he couldn't call for help. His brain still couldn't piece together why he was there. He remembered the pain and the man. It was the worst nightmare he could ever remember, and he wasn't at all certain that it was over. His sore muscles told him that it could all come back at any second and he wouldn't survive it. His body needed time to recover. He had no recollection of getting from the bed to the bath, only the insanity that had held him prisoner in his bed for what seemed like hours. He could only compare it to being locked against the shock of a defibrillator, the way muggles used them on TV. Only worse. A million times worse. Before he lost consciousness again, he thanked god that his daughter was safe with Draco.

Draco lay in the dark, watching the light behind his curtains get brighter and brighter. His dreams made him think about the last time Harry had touched his body, and how offended Harry had been, to see that he could reproduce the effects of the curse. He'd told Harry that the curse had fried his magic. He'd meant that it had ruined boundaries and broken safety locks. Things couldn't just go back into place and just stay there like it never happened. He'd lived with the curse for months before Harry was attacked with it in a single night. His parents had given him the best of care and support, to see that he got through it. That it didn't drive him insane. And in that time, his father had sacrificed everything, down to his pride, to touch him and make him feel like he still belonged to the human race. He'd felt so repulsive, until Lucius accepted everything about him.

Draco wished that he could give that miracle to Harry too. Harry never talked about the curse, or whether he still felt affected by it. But Draco was and he wanted Harry to admit that he was also. If Harry would let him, he'd show him exactly what he'd learned about those unwanted parts and how they weren't that bad. Certainly not the threat he saw them as, when it first happened. Now that it was two years on, and it only happened when Draco wanted it to, it wasn't the hell he once believed it to be.

But Harry had never experienced any of the good side of it. What he knew of the Unbearable curse, was terrifying to him and there would be no broaching the subject. There would be no change of heart. Draco understood that. It's just that, with dreams this powerful, and touch that good, he was sure all of Harry's fear would dissolve if he let Draco show him what a woman's body is capable of feeling. He had to squelch his wish for Harry, by making himself remember what his father had done. Harry had every reason to hate the curse and want nothing to do with it. That was too bad, because it was only a matter of time before he'd have to explain to Harry that the curse never really goes away.

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Please review! :-)

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A/N: I love every race and culture on this planet, don't let Lucius' outlook fool you. Every race holds a piece of the treasure map to happiness. But blood does hold volumes of information that gets passed on. What if he's not completely wrong? It has less to do with traits like hair and skin color, and more to do with which families have exercised magic and which have allowed it to die out. If you're interested in knowing more behind my intentions for Lucius' character, see my response to Katrina_bell. The link probably won't work, so here it is below. Beware of potential SPOILERS!

This reader was horrified by Lucius, but expressed genuine thoughtfulness about this story (AO3). Here's most of my response: I'm not trying to sway your opinion, by all means, despise Lucius. But I don't want to set you up for something that might not come. I know that when Snape doesn't have to hide anymore, he and Lucius will have a kind of showdown over what he's done to Harry. In this story, Lucius isn't totally evil but it does look like he is. It's like, a spider and fly. To the fly trapped in the web, the spider is evil chaos, but to the spider who has the upper hand, it's just a normal event that's perfectly natural to it. (credit to a Facebook post for the analogy). When Lucius "attacks" Harry in Evening's Freedom, he thinks it's happening on a dream level and has nothing to do with real life. He has no intentions of deliberately harming Harry now that Voldemort is gone, Draco and Harry are a couple, and the baby is involved. But that doesn't mean he's above exploring Harry's psyche and magic when he can. He won't know that Harry really felt his actions until he sees the The Prophet and puts it all together (takes place off camera, so to speak).

You're right, he'll never change or feel guilty, but if his respect for Harry's magic grows, he can treat him better. Lucius will suffer for what he's done, but it will come about in an unusual way. What I hope happens is that by the end, everyone involved will have to realize they are family and reach a whole new plateau of love, respect, and healing. This story will be like untangling all the knots I put in it when I wrote the other stories. It will go to some difficult places, but the intention behind it is love.

Yes, Lucius has an uncomfortable mindset because I didn't want to shy away from who he was in the books. JK's Deatheater metaphor was a metaphor for bigotry and racism in real life. (That doesn't really interest me, I have no patience with things like racism or homophobia and refuse to write about them. Lucius' gripe in the story is about families that use magic and families that don't, not their ethnic backgrounds). But when Jason Isaacs played him as such an enigmatic character, one who was evil enough to give Ginny Voldemort's books (to me, that's worse than pedophilia, but totally goes under the social radar. This was my chance to underscore the reality of giving those books to child.), I wasn't about to back down from the challenge of letting him be as "mean" as I could write him. I hope people realize that if he was soft and agreeable, there would be no real concern for Harry's safety, and I want readers to be convinced that Lucius is capable of just about anything, because he is. People might gloss over it, but his actions towards Ginny spell it out.

I'm also looking forward to how revealing Harry's true lineage will unfold. Pretty excited, actually. Even though I'm writing it, there are still surprises for me too. That's what makes storytelling fun. I think I'm going to use my response to you as notes for others. Your comment brought out some more information that I think will be helpful for other readers. I love when that happens. Thank you again! 3 :-)


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